STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- In a public art project held Sunday outside the Staten Island Museum in St. George, artists and families collaborated to create poems with Smash Type, dubbed the "living typewriter" by its creator, Ben Weber.

"The idea is that people take on roles of the letters of the alphabet and then ultimately type messages or poetry, one letter at a time," said the artist, a Brooklyn resident.

The project was sponsored by Elastic City, a Brooklyn-based not-for-profit.

The dozen attendees, gathered in front of the museum, chose a "spirit letter," and took turns stamping on large strips of white paper affixed to the ground.

Weber led the event, and compared responsibility for a letter to playing an instrument in an orchestra.

"Everyone will have different letters and will add to the poem," he said.

The Staten Island Museum agreed to host Smash Type after being contacted by Elastic City.

"A lot of people today, especially young people, have never typed on a typewriter before, so this is a very simple way of stamping," which she called "a great way of making art."

Ms. Matyas called Smash Type's informal nature its greatest strength.

"[People can] dip in and dip out of that experience," she said. "It's simple, it's winsome in its way, it has a charm factor and people will do different things with the medium."

That was the experience of Vitaliy Tokar of Prince's Bay, who brought his 8-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son to Smash Type.

"We went to the museum [first] and we stopped by [outside]," Tokar said. "It's fun. They're learning letters, especially the younger one."

Weber reported he began working on Smash Type two years ago while pursuing a master's degree in applied theater - "interactive theater for education and social justice," according to Weber - at the CUNY School of Professional Studies in Manhattan.

He produced the supersized stamps, made from Tropicana bottles and dowels, which he called "a little more kid-friendly."

Weber said children and their parents were his target audience.

"[They] have the most interest in letters, they're getting familiar with letters, they're acquiring literacy skills and they are also most likely to play around with the concept of language," he said.

One of Weber's classmates, Olivia Harris, a graduate student from Brooklyn, said she enjoyed "playing with words."

"It's nice to see kids interacting with words and see kids interacting with making words in a very physical way," she said, calling Smash Type's creative process "a nice mixture of creative art, in terms of the painting, and verbal art, in terms of the spelling."

Caitlin Ruttle, who represented Elastic City at the event, said her organization "commissions artists to do conceptual walks, more or less about what informs their practice."

"It's an experiential event, so it's something that's ephemeral, it's something that is collaborative between the artist and the participants," she said.

Ms. Ruttle said the 2012 season has been Elastic City's biggest, incorporating the work of 25 artists, up from 10 when the organization was founded two yeas ago.

In addition to directing Smash Type, Weber heads Elastic City's education program, which includes workshops around the city.

After two hours of production Sunday afternoon, Weber reported he was impressed with the finished product, which he called the "world of words."

"Children spill; Children smash; Lox fox," were included among the stamped words.

"We were trying to get our events out to all five boroughs, and the Staten Island Museum seemed like a great way into this borough," Weber said. "[It] was a great place to try it out."